Miraculous Macy defies long odds

Macy Lequire looks like a typical, happy 3-year-old as she giggles and claps her hands to grandma’s baby talk.
“You’s a miracle, yes you are,” Kathy Cody coos as she holds the blue-eyed, blonde darling in the dining room of Stecoah Diner, which Cody owns and operates.
“You couldn’t ask for a better child,” Cody said. “The two years I’ve been with her, I bet I haven’t heard her cry 30 times.”
That’s remarkable considering how many times seizures have racked her tiny, fragile body, how many days she’s spent in the hospital, that she can’t walk or talk.
Macy’s a miracle, yes, she is.
Macy has a rare blood disease that renders her immune system useless.
There’s only two cases in the United States and just 12 in the world,” remarked Macy’s father, 37-year-old Travis Lequire. “It’s a genetic disorder. There’s no cure for her.”
And there’s no guarantee Macy will live to see a fourth birthday.
Duke (University Hospital) hasn’t figured out why she’s alive. They’re amazed,” Travis said. “When I asked how long she’ll live, they said, ‘We don’t know, we can’t tell you.’”
The Duke doctors couldn’t provide a prognosis because they’d never encountered Macy’s condition.
“I understand that only 20 or 30 children have been born like her but they only lived two or three months. They never made it out of the hospital,” Travis said. “They can’t figure out why Macy hasn’t died.”
Might be because so many people want Macy to keep living.
“I pray every day to have another day with her. I pray, ‘Lord, let us keep her as long as we can,” Travis said.
“Twice, she’s been in Mission (Hospital),” Kathy remarked. “We almost lost her twice. She can’t attend school because of her immune system. The flu could be a death sentence to her.”
Macy’s been airlifted four times. The first time, when she was four months old, she spent 28 days in the hospital.
Since then she’s had a port (for medicine) and feeding tube put into her body.
So far, the Lequires have been lucky, fortunate, blessed, whatever you want to call it. But Travis and Amber know they can’t continue to live in Stecoah, a remote, rural area far from adequate medical facilities.
“By the time help gets to her, she could be comatose,” Cody said. “It’s at least 45 minutes before we can get her medical attention.”
Time is always on the minds of all who love Macy. They’re painfully aware that life’s clock is ticking.
And they continue to hope and pray.
“We’ve just asked for prayers,” Cody said.
And asked Duke to find Macy a liver. “Duke has her on a liver transplant list,” Travis said. “She won’t be cured, but her life expectancy goes way up, if her body will accept the liver. There’s a 90-percent chance it will work. I’m not giving up.”